I think the website you refer to is very good to know
of the tradeoffs about doing HPSP. I'll admit that
I was one of the biggest critics of this program. In
fact, I was so upset about not getting a civillian
deferment despite my letter writings, refusal to
rank a military residency slot, and refusal to
interview at any of the military sites, that I seriously
considered paying off my 4 years of GMO and then
reapplying for a civillian residency.
But now, my whole attitude about military medicine has
changed.
This is what I see as being the biggest complaints
from the website you referred to:
1)Not getting a deferment:
If you're whole goal is to get a "deferment" then of course
you'll be very (very) upset to know that that won't happen.
I pouted for months until I came to realize that my life is
truly much better doing a military training. I think the
people who didn't get a deferment carried their anger
throughout residency. And I think that anger stems more
from the fact that their coming to grips that they're losing
some of their autonomy to do whatever they want to do
in life. It's one of the hardest adjustments to make in
accepting a military way of life knowing that you're part of
an institution that has certain codes of conduct or rules that
need to follow. I'm still learning all the rules of the do's
and don'ts. But honestly, the military isn't as restrictive to
their docs as people make it out to be.
2)Retirement package:
One of the criticisms I read about was how poor the
military retirement package was. I had to laugh when
I saw that because obviously this guy did not do the
math. He's talking about something totally different
than what I'm talking about. The retirement he's referring
to is the military retirement meaning that if you stay in
the military for 20 years, you're guaranteed for the rest
your life a salary that's half your base pay.
But obviously, this guy doesn't know anything about the
Roth IRA, which I'm not surprised about, because most
physicians don't learn about all these things until they're
in their mid to late 30's. And by then, it's too late.
Everybody should invest in a Roth IRA as soon as possible.
No one in the military relies solely on their military retirement
as their sole source of income. I wouldn't. But if I qualified
for a military retirement, I'd sure be happy to have it to
supplement my income from my Roth IRA.
3)Residency training in the military is weak:
I honestly can't make comparisons between the military
program and other civillian places. But I'm pretty pleased
with my training here and no, I don't think our attendings are
weak. I think it all depends on which military facility you
train at too. But then I'm not sure if there's a big difference
between each one. Again, I honestly am not at a position
to comment more because I really don't know. I'll tell you
this however. I was able to publish a nice case report during
my internship year at a peer-reviewed journal and was
pleased with all the feedback and support I got from staff
to help me write it up.
Last thoughts. I'm not trying to be a military doc recruiter.
We all have our reasons for why we chose to go in certain
directions. But I will tell you that I feel a lot differently about
military medicine than I did several years ago while I was an HPSP student. And the biggest difference was sitting down
and punching out the financial numbers myself. I've done so many calculations (from student tuition and car loan pay offs to mortgages, future college tuition for children, and retirement, etc...) and every time my calculations show that I'm so much better off financially than I could've ever been had I not taken
this path.
Again, you just have to punch out the numbers yourself
and then you'll see.
